Reminds me a lot of this: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/rat-breeders-meet...
Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning
121–130 of 241 posts
Re: Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning
#122I still don't understand why laptops don't have a physical slider for the webcam that goes overtop. Unless it's open no problem. Sure u still have to deal with audio but at least the video is taken care of...
Re: Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've heard a drill works well.
Scary, because with some machines you're not drilling into a separate webcam lens but through the display glass to get to the webcam lens.
ifixit has some tutorials on how to remove the monitor glass that I've looked at before. You may need some special tools though and it isn't recommended for the retina displays.
Re: Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey, I find the hard drive light very helpful in determining whether my system is thrashing for virtual memory, or likely stuck on some CPU-bound process.
This is probably better implemented as a system tray icon.
I have a computer without a hdd indicator light and sometimes I miss it (like when I am fullscreened and a sudden lockup caused by unswapping lots of stuff occurs), but ultimately I haven't found it to be a big deal.
Re: Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not difficult, but it makes the system unflexible, The vendors, not worried about the privacy implications, choose what makes the system more flexible. I've heard that this was a serious flaw in Google's opinion, and they went through great efforts to ensure that the LED for the chromebook pixel was actually hard-wired into the camera's electronics. Which if true, shows that it's indeed possible.
It's not difficult, but it makes the system unflexible... Um. That would be exactly the point of doing it, in this case. The camera indicator (and the microphone indicator that every laptop should but currently does not have) should be completely inflexible. What "flexibility" is added by having an indicator that only sort-of indicates, anyway?
+1.
Seems like, at worst, any sort of manufacturing inflexibility is solved the same way they usually deal with this stuff: A ribbon cable. Then you just have to worry about the physical security of the machine which is its own independent issue regardless.
Personally, I assumed they did it this way since it seems obvious (that's what I do in my own electronics projects) and much simpler than using a microcontroller to do it. I forwarded this idea to concerned friends. Looks like I'm eating my own words.
Re: Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning
#126Honestly, I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to create a camera chip not susceptible to any software hack. The camera sensor needs electrical current to work. Simply place the LED inline or in parallel to the camera and you are done. Any time current is sent to the camera sensor, the LED cant help it but light up. My knowledge of electronics is limited, but I know for a fact that this can be achieved without th…
I am not an electrical engineer, I can't really judge the appropriateness or feasibility of various solutions.
But in the research paper cited by the Wash Post[1], there's a whole section where the authors discuss their recommendations, see under "VIII. SECURE CAMERA DESIGNS". Including some specific suggestions of how you would implement this design in hardware.
[1] https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bitstream/handle/1774.2...
Re: Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought the same as well. An LED in series with the circuit powering the CMOS sensor is all that would be needed. No amount of reprogramming is going to bypass a physical circuit. This is disappointing, and I expect Apple will redesign the cameras because of it.
The LED is wired up directly to light up in the opposite state of the standby signal (i.e. off control) to the camera module. However, the camera module has a programmable setting to ignore its standby pin, and the microcontroller can be programmed to do whatever it wants with the (now ignored) standby pin. The fact the camera controller could be reprogrammed from user space and then used to emulate a keyboard or mou…
It's not really the camera controller that can be reprogrammed, it's the USB controller - there is a setting that the USB controller changes in the camera chip, but there is a nontrivial amount of logic done on the USB controller.
Still, it's a very, very cool hack: they reprogram a microprocessor to send commands to another microprocessor and configure it in such a way that it enters a state where the pin that the LED is connected to is irrelevant.
Re: Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning
#128And I thought I was clever for turning the light on for only a tiny split-second to take a picture... (I wasn't writing malware. I put the program on my own laptop before I sent it in to be serviced. http://ecritters.biz/applecarefacility/ )
Split second as in actually significantly under a second? I've never been able to get mine to take a picture without lighting up for very nearly a full second.
Consider that the optical nerve is shut off when eyes move from one target to another. What human "sees" during that time is a retained image, so he is effectively blind. If you make something appear on screen away from his focal point it might distract user enough to be blinded while his focus moves across the screen, so the green dot won't be seen.
Re: Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning
#129There's quite a bit of alarm here and in the wording of the article. But no mention of HOW this exploit is applied. I mean surely they're not saying you send someone an e-mail and if they open it their webcam firmware is changed? Or visit a web page or have a flash banner ad run? You'd have to get the user to download and run a package installer that prompts for an admin password RIGHT? In other words; this isn't jus…
Nope. The paper explicitly states their assumptions. Asking for admin password (root) is not one of them. If you can get them to run a game (for example), you can pwn them.
Re: Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning
#130Honestly, I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to create a camera chip not susceptible to any software hack. The camera sensor needs electrical current to work. Simply place the LED inline or in parallel to the camera and you are done. Any time current is sent to the camera sensor, the LED cant help it but light up. My knowledge of electronics is limited, but I know for a fact that this can be achieved without th…
Now all you have to do is warn users that the one LED is important and means something. Not like all the other LEDs that are on all the time and are mostly pointless. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/webcam-spy-settleme... http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2386599,00.asp > When the school district investigated the case, it found other incidents of webcam spying, and notified the students involved, includin…
Now all you have to do is warn users that the one LED is important and means something.
There is already a common pop-culture shorthand for "now recording," the blinking red light. That's cheap and simple, and everyone already knows what it means, particularly when it's on a camera.
The real question, in my mind, is how the world-renowned user-experience and user-interface experts at Apple decided to use anything else.